6 Strategies to Defeat Dyslexia

The time spent in education is a significant part of child's development. But for a child with dyslexia, it can be a challenging task.

Dyslexia or reading disorder is a trouble with reading despite normal intelligence. The problems may be in varying degrees – from reading difficulty to interpreting the meaning. Dyslexia can cause language processing difficulties and visual processing difficulties and this, in turn, may cause emotional distress in children.

Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Tom Cruise, and Spielberg all became successful despite being dyslexic. Anyone could face Dyslexic condition. All that is needed to overcome this difficulty is proper guidance, strategies and right efforts. So, here are the 6 tips and tricks in teaching dyslexic students to become high-achievers.

1. Multisensory Learning

For a child with dyslexia, learning is a slow and difficult process. To make it easier, learning should be made multi-sensory involving looking, listening, speaking, touching, etc and with as much as variations possible. For example, phonics for struggling readers and hands-on, project-based instructions with lots of art could help to a greater extent. These activities help to absorb and process information in a retainable manner and also integrate visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic learning elements.

2. Assistive tools and technology

There are a few tools that can help aid a dyslexic child to learn:

Pocket Spell Checkers: These could be used to view alphabetic matches for the words which are spelt based on how it sounds phonetically.

Line Readers: It magnifies and highlights the portion of text over which it is placed. This helps Dyslexic readers to read the text with less distraction.

Technologies: like Distraction-free editors (Such as Zenpen.io), Speech recognition technology, text-predictor, Spell check technology, etc offers a way to save time and overcome some of the issues dyslexics encounter and makes life easier for them.

3. Helpful arrangements

When planning about a lesson, care should be taken to give only necessary instructions needed for the exercise as unnecessary detail could be distracting for dyslexic children.

-Use slower speech and simple sentences. This helps dyslexic children to absorb information bits by bits.

-Organize the work material by giving the templates with different frames and mind maps.

-Give them a plenty of time to complete the assigned task.

-Grade based on effort and ideas instead of highlighting spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.

-Assess dyslexic child's strengths and weaknesses and using different teaching methods to build the strengths.

4. Educational games

Learning happens when it is fun. Games like Draw Something, Hanging with Friends Anagram Scramble, Chicktionary, Frogs' Rhyming Machine, What's the time? Bingo, Math Run etc are entertaining and educative. These games assist in improving reading skills and learning core mathematical concepts. ABCya, Dyslexiagames.com, nessy.com are other websites which provide more such games.

5. Coordinating with parents and teachers

Meet and discuss with the parents and teachers of other dyslexic children. This is important because each child is unique and there is no particular method which will work out for each child. The meeting and discussion help in knowing the ongoing process and successful methods to support children to overcome learning difficulties.

6. Emotional support

Everyone who teaches dyslexic children should be aware that each child is different and they may have many talents and skills. Their abilities must not be measured purely on the basis of their difficulties in acquiring literacy skills. Boosting up the confidence of dyslexic children by praising them for their small achievements can go long way in their development. Using positive reinforcement programs such as giving rewards and certificates helps them establish and secure their self-confidence.